Caneworking: Difference between revisions

Cane can also be incorporated in larger blown glass work by picking it up on a bubble of molten clear glass. This technique involves the gaffer creating a bubble from molten clear glass while an assistant heats the pattern of cane. When the cane design is fused and at the correct temperature and the bubble is exactly the correct size and temperature, the bubble is rolled over the cane pattern, which sticks to the hot glass. The bubble must be the right size and temperature for the pattern to cover it fully without any gaps or trapping air. Once the canes have been picked up, the bubble can be further heated, blown, and smoothed and shaped on the marver to give whatever final shape the glassblower wishes, with an embedded lacy pattern from the canes. Twisting the object as it is being shaped imparts a spiral shape to the overall pattern.

 

 

The classical ''reticello'' pattern is a small uniform mesh of white threads in clear glass, with a tiny air bubble in every mesh rectangle. To make an object in this pattern, the glassblower first uses white single-thread ''vetro a fili '' canes to blow a cylindrical cup shape, twisting as he forms it so the canes are in a spiral, and using care not to totally smooth the inside ribbing that remains from the canes. Setting this cup aside (usually keeping it warm in a furnace, below its softening point), he then makes another closed cylinder in the same pattern, but twisted in the opposite direction, and retaining some of the ribbing on the cylinder’s outside. When this cylinder is the right size, the glassblower plunges it into the warm cup, without touching any of the sides until it is inserted all the way. Air is trapped in the spaces between the ribs of the two pieces, forming the uniformly spaced air bubbles. The piece may then be blown out and shaped as desired.<ref name=TaitTechniques />{{rp|240}} The term ''reticello'' is often loosely applied to any criss-cross pattern, whether ''vetro a fili '' or ''vetro a retorti '', white or colored, and with or without air bubbles.